My Favorite Google Alternatives

July 30, 2015/ Marcy Phelps / Search tools / 6 comments

In recent posts about search engines I’ve covered Google and Bing, but sometimes plain vanilla isn’t enough – especially when you need advanced tools or focused content. It’s times like these when I turn to alternative, or specialized, search engines.

Here are some of my favorite Google alternatives and how I use them:

DuckDuckGo – This search engine’s specialty is privacy, so it won’t track your searches. That’s a plus when you need to be stealth, but Google’s personalization also skews results. And that’s not good when you’re trying to get the full picture – instead of just Google’s version.

Biznar – When I need to cut through the clutter and focus on high-quality sources, I head to this deep web business research portal. Right now they draw results from about 100 authoritative sources, and they’re in the process of expanding that list.

TinEye – Do you ever see or take a picture of something and wonder what it is? Try uploading the image file or URL  to this reverse image search engine to see if you can identify it or find more like it.

WolframAlpha – Billed as a “Computational Knowledge Source,” this search tool gathers, computes, and formats available data on the fly. Instead of just results, you get insights. Compare company financials, generate demographic charts, and answer countless math questions.

What are your favorite alternatives to Google and Bing?

Tags google alternativessearch engines